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The so-called ballot label always contains a laundry list of the goodies districts plan to buy with the money: like updated classrooms, new schools, energy-saving solar panels, new sports fields.

The wording never mentions that the bonds are a form of borrowing, nor that property taxes must be increased, often by hundreds of dollars a year, to pay off the bonds. And it certainly doesn’t mention how much those bonds will cost homeowners.

It all contributes to a fiction that bonds are somehow magical, free money. “There’s this underlying misperception that bonds aren’t basically a tax increase,” says Assemblyman Matthew Dababneh, D-Encino, whose efforts to bring more ballot transparency were gutted this year.

Voters are understandably confused: When they are asked to approve state bonds for something like parks or high-speed rail, the repayments come from existing funds. There is no tax increase.

Local bonds are different: They require a new revenue stream from tax increases to pay them off. School trustees, led by the California School Boards Association, would prefer voters don’t figure that out.

It’s so cynical. Keep voters in the dark and they’re more likely to approve the bond measures. These are the people in charge of our schools. They’re setting a horrible example, acting like spoiled children who try to get their way through deceit.

As justification, they point to the big ballot guide that contains an official statement about the tax rate for a bond on the ballot. Indeed, that statement provides good information that voters should read.

But most don’t. It’s often not easy to find. Some county election offices, like Santa Clara, San Mateo and Los Angeles, inexcusably bury tax rate statements behind the actual text of the measures, which can go on for pages and only lawyers would read.

Most significantly, the tax rate statements should not be used as an excuse for providing misleading information on the ballot itself — the information most voters rely on.

This year, in separate bills, two legislators tried to fix this. Dababneh and Assemblymen Matthew Harper, R-Costa Mesa, each proposed that the ballot label contain information about the cost to property owners.

When lobbyists objected, they each scaled back their measures to require merely a mention on the ballot that voters should check the tax rate statement to learn about the cost.

Even that wasn’t enough. Harper’s bill, AB 776, died in a Senate committee. Dababneh’s bill, AB 1194, passed the Legislature and is now on the governor’s desk — but only after the assemblyman removed the key provision regarding ballot label language.

All that’s left of the bill is a change in the required information that goes in the tax rate statement. It’s a good change that mandates telling voters the average tax rate increase property owners would face over the life of the bonds. But, again, it does nothing to fix the ballot label language — the wording that matters the most.

To understand the political forces, consider the letter of opposition by the school boards association.

“AB 1194 would further limit the ability of local educational agencies to inform voters about the benefits of the proposed tax measure,” wrote lobbyist Nancy Chaires Espinoza. “This lack of information could result in fewer votes for these measures and therefore decreased resources for public schools.”

Once again, tell them all the good stuff and none of the bad. Winning trumps transparency.

The sad thing is it’s really not that hard to provide ballot label language that provides both the benefits of the bond measure and the cost, as the city of Berkeley showed with a 2016 measure and I demonstrated in a prior column.

What’s lacking is political will in the Legislature to do the right thing.

Dan Borenstein is an award-winning columnist for the Bay Area News Group and editorial page editor of the East Bay Times. He has worked for the Times and its affiliated newspapers since 1980, including previous assignments as political editor, Sacramento bureau editor, projects editor and assistant metro editor. A Bay Area native, he holds master’s degrees in public policy and journalism from University of California, Berkeley.

Our nation’s education secretary recently suggested that to prevent the next school massacre perhaps teachers should be permitted to carry guns. People took to social media to roar that many schools can’t even afford pencils, let alone armaments.